Ok, I love books.
I love to read.
I can spend hours in a good book store. Hours. Give me a nice, high quality, used book store and I am in heaven.
I get that not everybody shares my passion. I get that some people don't read.
But who, who in the world, would use this service:
Books By The Foot.
I mean, hell why bother? That's like these people who have $95,000 kitchen remodels, but they never cook.
WTF??
A library is as personal a thing as I can imagine. To hire someone to pick out books as decorations? Did they order their children out of a catalog so they would match the wallpaper? That's like buying a picture frame, and leaving the sample picture of someone you don't know in the frame. Every single book in my house, (and their number is legion) has a story, a history. Many are old, dear friends, some of them are acquaintances I've met in passing, some are scary neighbors, not to be entirely trusted, but each one is there for a reason, and you can bet I know the reason.
Anyone who would use this service has no soul.*
You can bet your ass these people will pretend they have read them. And look at the categories!!
What Asses!!
****UPDATE
Christina's comment was just too perfect to leave down there in comments:
That's like...worse than hiring someone to pick out your spouse! It's more like hiring someone to pick out your sex toys! And test them for you. /shudder/Exactly!
Wrong. All kinds of wrong.
*As does anyone who doesn't like Johnny Cash, but that's another post.
20 comments:
That's like...worse than hiring someone to pick out your spouse! It's more like hiring someone to pick out your sex toys! And test them for you. /shudder/
Wrong. All kinds of wrong.
Sad, sad, sad.
Although something similar makes for a funny scene in The Birdcage.
Although something similar makes for a funny scene in The Birdcage.
You know, I've never actually seen that film. I should, I will, I've heard it's great.
I was so in love with the Original (La Cage Aux Folles), that I just wasn't interested in seeing it.
btw - If you plan on seeing the original, GET THE SUB-TITLED VERSION. The dubbed version is shit.
Really, you'll thank me.
OK, I got really curoius and measured several feet of my nearest book case. I was surpied to find that it takes bewteen 11 and 13 of my books to take up a foot of space.
I do have a business idea. Why not sell color coordinated leather or faux leather covers for the books people already have? It does seem that appearances are the reason for this folly. Anybody want to back me?
Why not sell color coordinated leather or faux leather covers for the books people already have?
I'm in! Or even fake books, with a hideaway Stereo or something?
The only reasons I can see this being useful are: 1) someone trying to sell bookcases, showing how nice they look all dressed up, or 2) Hollywood using these for movies or tv sets.
I did notice they sell individual books at this site also. It looks like the kind of store where I could spend all day and only come up for air or coffee.
Heh. I work in a library.
I recuse myself from this conversation based on the fact that I have a obvious partisan bias towards books.
Robin -
you are right, the store itself looks great.
Why not sell color coordinated leather or faux leather covers for the books people already have?
-----
But that has been done for centuries - this idea is not new.
Excerpt from the diary of Samuel Pepys (Wednesday 18 January 1664)
"Up and by and by to my bookseller’s, and there did give thorough direction for the new binding of a great many of my old books, to make my whole study of the same binding, within very few."
Wow Petra, where'd you pick that one up?
Well, from the diaries...
But honestly (and I do not want to appear as a know-it-all here), that was exactly how it was done.
You bought your books basically unbound and took them to a bookbinder, who then bound them according to your taste.
When visiting a library in Europe (let's say in a monastery, a castle or a country house or even Pepy's library in Cambridge, UK) you very often see that all the books are bound in the same leather (or other materials).
That's the reason why - they were all customized.
And sometimes they changed the covers, when they had bought books already bound (that would have been second-hand books) - "to make the whole study of the same binding."
haha - loved her comment!!!
That. Is. Terrible. Not the service per se, but the fact that there's a market for this sort of thing. WTF?
Thank you, Sir Knight.
I loved this post! It is always satisfying to have someone express what is dear to your heart.
When I was a teenager, the first thing I would check out in someone's house/bedroom was the book collection (and then the music). I'm not sure I've changed much.
Philosophical question: Is it worse to have no books or fake books? My mother once toured a home (fancy schmancy) and she swore there was not a book to be seen. The built-in bookshelves were largely bare -- with just a few photographs (the artifically posed kind).
Empty bookshelves, empty mind, I say.
By the way, the George Bush eject countdown is a nice touch.
Thank you Beth for the lovely comments!
As to your quesion, at least the empty book shelves are honest. The fake ones . . . No, just wrong.
I've been pondering this one, and I think that you're right.
Empty bookshelves say don't know/don't care . . .
Fake bookshelves say pretentious git who knows better, but will still skim the Cliff's Notes every time.
At least with the empty bookshelves you can hope that the person likes to knit or garden.
It's really bad when you have to have the last comment . . . TWICE!
But I came across this quote today and it is too, too perfect not to share.
"A room without books is as a body without a soul."
(Cicero)
"A room without books is as a body without a soul."
I really feel that way. (I feel a post coming on)
I don't understand people who don't read. I understand not having the time, I will never understand not having the desire. I realize we are probably in the minority, but I just don't get it.
That is one of the most soulless things I've read. I mean, sweet darwin on melba toast, what's the point of having books?
And I'm with you 100% on being in a used book store. Everything from the musty old smell of well-loved books to finding that one book you never expected to ... it's magical and uplifting. I can spend hours in a bookstore and never buy a thing.
Of course, even if I never buy a thing, I'm usually carrying around 738 volumes until I put them back. I guess I have to at least pretend I'm going to get something. :)
A for instance? I recently got a library card here in Columbus and had to put back about 30 books because I realized they would still be there when I went back. Heh.
Maybe we need to look for jobs that will pay us tons of money just for reading.
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